Momoko Kikuchi -- Hoshi no Shinkirou（星の蜃気楼）

 

Yes, indeed that is a very young Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）displayed somewhere within an issue of "Myojo"（明星）from the mid-1980s. Recently, she appeared on "Uta Con"（うたコン）a few weeks ago to commemorate her 40th anniversary in show business by a performance of one of the tracks from her EP "Eternal Harmony" which had come out a little over a month ago.

To be honest, the song that she performed on the episode has yet to really mesh with me so for a while, it was lingering in the backlog. However, I encountered the first track on "Eternal Harmony" within the last week or so, "Hoshi no Shinkirou" (Star Mirage), and it's left a much better impression upon me. It hasn't been lost on me that the previous article today features a song that also begins with "Hoshi no..." and was also given exposure on this morning's "Uta Con", but it's purely a coincidence that we have these two songs today...although I'm now considering buying some lottery tickets.😆

I'm not sure whether "Hoshi no Shinkirou" would be considered to be Neo-City Pop despite the fact that Kikuchi has had a history dabbling in the original genre, thanks to composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. Still, it is some rather groovy trance-worthy pop which feels almost Yuming-esque from that similar time period. Words and music were provided by vocalist, musician and songwriter Atsushi Horie（ホリエアツシ）from the rock band Straightener（ストレイテナー）.

Anyways, congratulations to Professor Kikuchi on her career milestone!